A TRULY eclectic few months will open out for the Limerick based Irish Chamber Orchestra and audiences, heading into a fourth season under artistic partners. These are the Hungarian conductor Gábor Tákacs Nagy and clarinettist and composer Jörg Widmann as principal guest conductor.
There is a first time collaboration in the mix, bringing in Irish Youth Opera and Opera Northern Ireland to Lime Tree Theatre for Handel’s “operatic masterpiece”, ‘Agrippina’, a performance that will go on to tour Galway, Dublin and Armagh, September 8 to 19.
“Agrippina, wife of Emperor Claudius places her volatile teenage son Nero on the throne,” Charlotte Eglington of the Orchestra tells us. ”The saga, enveloped in glorious melodies, is Handel at his most theatrically visceral and musical best”.
Then from October 8 to 10, Katherine Hunka will lead with violin a programme of works by Haydn, Mozart and Stravinsky, plus Mozart’s thrilling symphony in D Major. Finghin Collins will play Haydn’s D major Concert, all taking place in RDS Dublin, UCH Limerick on October 9 and Galway’s Black Box. Bualadh Bos Children’s Festival proves to be another creative outlet on October 15, returning to Lime Tree on Mary Immaculate College campus.
Look forward to a delightful production of Saint-Saëns ‘Carnival of the Animals’, narrated by Louis Lovett, acclaimed as an actor for young audiences. Guest soloists with the ICO ensemble include Finghin and Dearbhla Collins on piano.
In early November the ICO journeys to the states of California, Colorado and New Mexico with Takacs-Nagy giving audiences there something of the Haydn experiences that informed so many recent concerts.
Finally in December, Jorg Widmann has selected Mozart and Sander Veress for concerts driven by wind instruments on the 2nd in Limerick and on December 3 in Cork. Ailish Tynan is their loved choice of soprano on December 17 in Limerick and her hometown of Mullingar on December 18 for a ‘Scandinavian Christmas’.
